Their framework is a tactic of ideological marginalization that is commonplace for mainstream economic theory

Gender ideology and existing structures that reinforce disciplinary norms and values can effectively marginalize certain areas of study and unorthodox interpretations of economic concepts. Concepts that appear “neutral” can act as definitional boundaries that entrench and naturalize orthodox interpretations at the expense of alternatives (Barker and Kuiper 2003; Méthot 2013).12 Disciplinary norms have been deployed (consciously or not) as women and underrepresented men enter and advance in the discipline.13 For example, disciplinary norms direct graduate students to research questions within histori­ cally constructed boundaries that define the “proper” terrain of eco­ nomics, pushing other questions into the margins (Mata 2009). Those boundaries are policed (intentionally or not) by faculty members, men­ tors, and others, often in what is understood as the student’s (or faculty member’s) interest. From the perspective of dissertation committee members, if a candidate wants to graduate, get an academic job, pub­ lish, and earn tenure, many would advise her to do what is expedient and not upset the apple cart by challenging those boundaries. The demographics and hierarchical structure of the discipline reinforce this directive: dissertation topics and journal articles need to appeal to committee members, reviewers, and editors, who, historically, have been white men. If this demographic was perceived to have preferences for cer­ tain topics or approaches—or distaste for a set of topics or approaches— pandering to these perceived preferences is strategic. They may be more likely than other demographics to view research on race or gender as “not of general interest,” for example, even though women and underrep­ resented men are the majority of the population of any country.14 Disciplinary norms and dominant epistemic values therefore structure economists’ careers, especially prior to tenure. It is noteworthy that pref­ erences that are shared, or are perceived to be shared, by members of a relatively powerful, relatively homogeneous group may distort group members’ own perceptions. Another mechanism that institutionalizes bias in tenure and promotion decisions is the adoption of seemingly gender­neutral student evaluations of teaching. Colleagues need not be sexists who discriminate against women for bias to be present; bias is a function of the socialization of stu­ dents into a gender ideology that devalues women. The adoption of teach­ ing evaluations is an example of how apparently neutral data collection can convert bias in one period to structural resistance to diversity in the next. Student evaluations of teaching embed resistance to women’s advancement in the structure of the occupation itself. Evidence indicates that the penalty for being a woman is especially high when women teach in male­dominated disciplines like economics (Lazos 2012; Mengel, Sauermann, and Zölitz 2019). While innovations in evaluation methods could give rise to sexism without sexists, about 50 percent of women report directly experiencing sex discrimination, and 33 percent of men and 44 percent of women report witnessing sex discrimination between 2008 and 2018 (CEDPC 2019: 49–50). At nearly 40 percent of the full sample, sex discrimination was the most common form of discrimination witnessed, followed by that based on race, research topics, and political views, all at 23 percent. These data suggest that gender bias remains one of the most significant chal­ lenges in the discipline. Within academic economics, gendered expectations, norms, and values are pervasive and influence recruitment, evaluation of merit in tenure and promotion, behavior within the occupation, formation of occupational atti­ tudes, occupational culture, and occupational stereotypes (Caplow 1954: 102). Gender ideology is internal to the discipline and its “climate”: it con­ tributes to the demographics of economics and to women’s—and men’s— gendered experiences in the discipline.15 Occupations with strict vertical hierarchies tend to profound conservatism (Caplow 1954). Historically, gatekeepers have been more likely to promote those who look similar and think similarly. Homogeneity has costs. Compared with other social sci­ ence disciplines, economics suffers from a lack of epistemic diversity. As Janet Seiz (1993: 187) cautions, “The lack of diversity in the scientific com­ munity and the powerful influence of ideology produce a commonality of unquestioned beliefs, limitations of vision, and conscious or unconscious wishes. False arguments may not be rooted out because those who would be inclined to challenge them—members of social groups with different experiences and interests—lack numbers and influence.” Women in economics, especially feminists, have been critical of this occupational culture from the time they entered the discipline in numbers large enough to advocate for women as a group in the early 1970s (Cohen 2019). They have argued not only that women are excluded but that research about women is marginalized. Hence feminists have been nega­ tively affected by the culture while they document and combat it with their research. They experienced disciplinary closure to women and the closure of intellectual space. The marginalization of feminist research is a function not of simple misogyny or protecting material interests alone. It is resistance to the way feminist research challenges orthodox interpretations of value and related distributions of power in the discipline, in the household, and in society. In emphasizing the value of reproductive labor and the dependence of production on reproduction, feminists challenge the centrality of paid work in economic theory and the popular perception of the paid worker as the primary contributor to the household (Himmelweit, Simonetti, and Trigg 2001). In this way feminist research challenges the centrality of men as the primary actors in economics and in life more generally.